The Art of Displacement
by SadieWhiteCoat
Summary: Nico Robin and Trafalgar Law. A character study of individuals, friends, rivals and lovers.
1. Wano: Week 2

Wano 2 Weeks after Arrival:

Robin is a master of balance. So many years of maneuvering her impossible limbs and body has made her so. She slides into a formation and tilts her fan perfectly hitting the taiko on beat. There are faces, or rather the idea of faces just outside the lights from the stage. If she really focused she could start to feel presences or colors, but it is only a whiff and it is already gone. Later, when combing out her hair she will remember the journey to Wano. She will remember trying to train observation haki with him. To think that someone could have such a window into your soul like that and know what you doing even before you did it, well that was unnerving. If that person was him, even more so. But Robin is a fast learner and skilled observer. She is already far towards mastery. This is good, she thinks, because she does not want to be a burden. Having haki would be one more fortification against the rarity of her position.

Later, when she is on the verge of sleep, she will hear voices. She never knows if it is in her own voice or a collection of voices, but they resound in her all the same. Their resonance speaks "only one," "truth," and "history." Sometimes the voice is so strong, she wonders if she speaks out loud in her sleep. Nami has never said anything and the few times she's shared his bed, he hasn't either. Which reminds her, she isn't "the only one." She is but one among many "only ones" fashioned by the misfortunes of their current regime. She is like him. She divorces herself from that thought. Caught up in the whirlwind of Dressrosa and after, so many things happened so fast. Now, she has not seen him in months and it feels even longer. It is right that the Wano crew should all separate. She is the only one who can do this job.

Robin is a master of evasion. She has been running from the government since she was eight and then a brief stint at an organization she prefers to forget and then well. . . Her survival was all patience and stealth and the occasional vindictiveness of someone who has lost too much. As a master of evasion, she has also learned to be a master of information. This is how she knows things about him she is sure he would rather not be known. Perhaps, this is why she feels a throb of connection to him. She realizes she is silly because she has created a narrative that he may no know he is taking part in and Robin knows she has far more pressing matters to attend to. Yet she can't help but feel the pleasure of affecting him, leaving someone like HIM so wrong footed. She wonders if she is one of the few women to breath in his space for quite some time.

He has never quite said as much, or even acknowledged their ridiculously parallel lives. She knows he also has been in the underworld and traded in information, perhaps obsessively. Yet, he has never even asked her about her past. But she feels like she knows his empathy in the way his body bends to hers. She is beginning to think she can read his tells. In reality, it is not too hard once you really know him. He is surprisingly passionate. A cool stream that becomes rapids if you are willing to follow it long enough, patiently enough. She wonders which of them is darker.

But now Robin is on stage, humbling herself, performing demure for the sake of her, their dreams. She was too old to begin as a maiko, so will have to debut as a Geisha when she is promoted. She knows that will never happen. Soon her captain and friends will land and the drudge of an island under siege will halt and explode. The liberation will take only days, despite the years or even months the people here have suffered. But, that is their pattern. Revolution follows wherever the Strawhats land. It is so natural and effortless. It is a matter of setting on shore and saying "here we are." She doesn't pretend to understand all her captain's motives, but when she looks at him in those moments she is reminded of his father: a man that can turn over hearts and countries with the fear and freedom of his name. She counts it an honor to be among both their crews. Their purpose has ignited her purpose. She will reveal that which has been obscured she will inscribe the truth of the past. This is why she is here now, training to gain an audition with the Shogun. Her sources say that is where she can find the next poneglyph.

She is a lynchpin in the life of a crew who she knows will make history. She does not swerve, she is not afraid. But, she is a target. Even if their current country wasn't isolationist she thinks she is still unrecognizable under so many layers of silk and powder. She imagines her nakama there at the performance. What would they think. Unexpectedly, she imagines him. What would he think. She doesn't know. It is so absurd and teenage. She has not been a child for a long time. But, she thinks he would understand her reasons, her delicate and tiring infiltration of this society: her eyes blooming over a network of tea house gossip. He would understand. He is a strategist and he is patient. He just completed a 13 year plan of revenge and she suspects, fears that this is only the surface of his end game. In the end, they do not REALLY know Trafalgar Law's motives. But, she is almost as certain, as certain as he is dangerous, that he now doesn't know his either. His pleas in the flower field that day to die with her captain were not the words of a man so quick to deceive. She smiles through another pose and for a second imagines amber eyes in the oblong faces of the crowd. A pleasant sensation of being both prey and predator. A feeling of looking into the yellow eyes of a tiger. Just as suddenly, the sensation leaves and she continues to dance.

Like any good spy/researcher/assassin she makes damn sure to know as much as she possibly can about anyone that will be around her nakama for long. Especially, an enemy captain sleeping on the same ship. She forgets the exact paper trail that led her to Flevance. It was said to have been beautiful, just like Ohara. She finds the birth records: Trafalgar D. Water Law. It is all too obvious. She files the information away. She has never told her crew about the command of Poseidon. She has never discussed treaties or research on the Voice of All Things for that matter. Who would she talk with? Maybe Chopper would be the most interested, given his equal love of science and fanciful stories? The only D she's known enough to study is her captain. She watches him in agony over the boom of an invisible voice on Zou and her hypothesis grows stronger. What she doesn't expect is Trafalgar crouching behind a bush, sweating looking like he's going to hurl. He is quiet enough that he can slip away like that. It is almost like he knew he would have to. She begins to suspect him. He is a formidable ally and, if he too could read those stones, a formidable rival. But, at least she knows she is safe with him. He may not need her skills. It occurs to her that in regards to . . . well them. . . that this is the only thing she is sure of.

She closes her fan, bows, shuffles off stage. It is a luxury to have let her mind wander. Ironically, under the guise of performance and mask is where she can be her truest self. Being a Geisha is demanding. It isn't demanding in the way that the oiran or high class prostitutes are trained, a geisha is an artist, an entertainer. However, since Wano has fallen to harder times those categories are mingling more and more. She knows she must take clients to progress, but does not feel like navigating the social intricacies of what they think they expect from her in this regard. She is a bit nervous when she leaves the stage and hears "O-Robi you have a client."

Robin prepares the tea and lights her incense stick. She kneels on the silk cushion in front of the entrance, head bowed, sleeves trailing. Footsteps. She is reminded of being stalked by a tiger. She reminds herself that now, in her new life with the Strawhats, she is in control. The feeling of the approaching tiger leaves. She raises her eyes to greet her guest and meets the amber gaze of Trafalgar Law.


	2. Entry Point

In a too quiet room, two people, who hardly ever flinch, blink and look away. In that span of a second they are simultaneously jolted into memories that they simultaneously decide to ignore. He takes a seat in front of her. Something is missing, and in that lack, he feels slightly exposed. Without his hat, his hair lies flatter and he no longer carries the impossibly long blade he wields like a deft magician inside the chamber of his power. He is still just as dangerous. Admittedly, with his tattoos covered he looks less so. He wears leather bracers around the back of his arms that overlap slightly with a type of training tape wound to his elbows. His yukata is black and gold accenting the lighter tones of his eyes and, with the absence of his usual paraphernalia, they are so much more prominent. She can almost see the swell of his jolly roger over his heart at the V of where his scarf falls over the top of his yukata. She thinks of that night in the infirmary and is suddenly sure he does too as he watches her. It is the last time they spoke after all.

It looks like he's suddenly realized that this is a very bad idea and makes a motion to leave. She stops him with her voice: "how did you enjoy the show Law-kun." She purposely uses diminutive. He bows his head and smirks as if use to shading his eyes under the brim of a hat.

Then his eyes snap towards hers,

"quite well Nico-ya."


	3. Threat and Promise

She begins to pour the tea as he watches her wrists as if they could help him understand why he's come to her and not Zoro or Usopp or, god-forbid, Franky. To break the silence he adopts a tone that is polite yet distant, perfectly attenuated to his choice of suffix: "Wano suits you Nico-ya." She decides to take this for the compliment it is. "Isn't this nostalgic Trafalgar, it's like all those nights on the Sunny sharing tea together when neither of us could sleep." She slips in and out of different ways to address him signaling that she does not know the current state of their increasingly personal alliance. She waits for him to set the tone. He regards her quietly. He exhales, his whole body relaxes into the role he's chosen, that which is more comfortable for him: captain. "So that's how this will play out," she thinks. He offers, "I've got some information to pass on to your crew and we can be alone here, it is a convenient cover." All she says is "Oh?"

She almost pauses, but that would disturb the steady flow of tea, a tell. Paranoia has served her well, kept her alive. She's grown, she's come to value herself and, in that value, she's come to realize the right to her own destiny. Really, it was Kinemon who sketched out the broad strokes of the Wano plan, and everyone filled in their own role. She choose this. She can't believe that he was somehow involved in influencing her current position. No, it's just the way he wants it to sound, a suggestion that she, that her position, was fitting into his plan. It's a bit presumptuous. But, she doesn't know on whose end. Is she presuming too much? It's just that the situation is, well . . . convenient.

Captain Trafalgar leans back into the wall and kicks out his limbs. He assumes his favorite position, alert yet lazy, and begins to lay out all his intel on the enemy: numbers, location and the worrying names of supernovas who have joined his cause. This was not anticipated. She wonders if her Captain could manage to turn them, to charm them as well as he did the Surgeon of Death. Clearly, they will need all the help they could get. Speaking of, she's pretty sure Law's original plan to take down Kaido was a calculated chess move and not the frontal assault it is rapidly becoming. He is too smart to get himself involved in something like this, yet here he is. How much of it is loyalty to her Captain, how much of it is ambition? Did he know the location of the Shogun's poneglyph? Did he care?

Captain Trafalgar puts down his tea too deliberately to be doing anything but feigning indifference, "how about you, are you planning to dance in the Shogun's private chambers Nico-ya?" "Ah, so he does know about that," she thinks. She feels an undercurrent of _something_. "Yes, that would be the request and culmination of my training as a geisha." "I see," he drawls.

He no longer holds her gaze. His eyes are still hooded, keen, but this time they drift languidly to the wall behind her. The way they unfocus reminds her of how he looks in his reading glasses. She would never have associated glasses with Trafalgar Law, but she found she liked them. In command of his ship, looking over records, he was competent, professional, hot. She clamps that down and replaces it with "a strong ally." He reaches a hand to tap on the incense stick burning low to signal the end of their time. He looks up, holds her gaze again. Except, it isn't Captain Trafalgar this time, it is Law. And, Law is something entirely different.

Law is an artifact buried for thousands of years. A vessel to unearth: a whole history inscribed if you shine the light just right to catch the lettering. Law is both the thrill of discovery and the clues. Law is a thread to research, to follow and to never unwind. Law is a great archaeological feat. She has, she will, find him. She almost feels she has again when he moves to open his mouth and . . .

And, the incense burns out and Law becomes Captain Trafalgar. When he finally says, "you did well, you should get in," she can't help but feel she is starting over, sifting through the sand. So she simply says "Thank you." Trafalgar nods. "I'll be back, I've bought the rest of your time after all." He tips his hat, picks up his sword and leaves with what is at once both threat and promise.


End file.
